One friend told her she was too old to raise a child. Another promised it would keep her young.

A third told her she would never go out again. A fourth noted: “You’ve been out.”

In the end, none of their advice mattered. At 73, Marilyn Berger was ready to become a first-time mother.

Ms. Berger was always someone who knew her own mind. Long before women were regulars in television news — long before they were regulars in any field but nursing or teaching — she was the White House correspondent for NBC News. After a short, unhappy marriage, she focused on her trailblazing career. At 43, she remarried, to Don Hewitt, the strong-willed television news giant who created “60 Minutes” (he died last August). Eventually, Ms. Berger, who has also written for The New York Times, slowed down at work, but she kept it up everywhere else. At 60, she learned to sail. At 72, she decided to write a book.